ACI

Three weeks ago Cisco released ACI version 3.2. This is the new long-lived release version of ACI and therefore the recommended version to deploy in new deployments or when upgrading. (Versions 2.1 and 2.2 are also long-lived releases and can still be used). Most of the really new features were introduced in the 3.0 release, but 3.2 also boasts some interesting features. The release notes list them all, but I would like to zoom in on a few of them in this post.

Direct Server Loadbalancing is a loadbalancing mechanism in which traffic is sent via a Virtual IP (VIP) to one or more Real Servers. These servers are in the same Layer 2 domain as the loadbalancer itself and will respond directly to the client without the return traffic going through the loadbalancer on the way back. This differs from loadbalancing based on source NAT or when using the loadbalancer as gateway. The following image shows Direct Server Return (DSR) Loadbalancing.